


Knitting Lessons

by whymylife (nabringa)



Category: Grey Is... (Webcomic)
Genre: Best Friends, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, Knitting, Prose Poem, Rainbows, Sorry guys, Synesthesia, Writing, as a symbol of hope not lgbtq+, just platonic relationships here, not explicitly discussed but constitutes the majority of the subtext, not sure what this is?, umm... - Freeform, writing experiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28993785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nabringa/pseuds/whymylife
Summary: Writing is like unraveling your soul and weaving a new tapestry from the threads.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Knitting Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend Dair, who told me my prose was beautiful.

Writing is like unraveling your soul and weaving a new tapestry from the threads. 

Sometimes they tangled and tugged, rubbing your wrists raw and winding tight around your throat. Sometimes they slipped through your hands like sunshine and silk and curled around your fingers soft as a prayer. 

Sometimes a thread is stuck, and a part of you doesn’t want to become undone. 

***

White slowly unscrewed the pen and pulled out the inkwell, spinning it in his fingers. 

He's feeling frayed today. Doesn't dare pull at loose stitches for fear of pulling them apart, for fear of unwinding himself into a matted bundle of pain and grief and misery, threads crisscrossing and tangling and twisting together, weaving themselves into one aching knot of apathy. 

So he doesn’t. He’s dismantled the tool of his unmaking and doesn’t intend to put it back together any time soon. Now he just has to find a way to quiet the maelstrom in his mind without wading into the thick of it. Shut it down and shut it out. 

Standing, he picks up his jacket and school bag off the bed and walks out of his room and out of his father’s house, feet finding a familiar path down a backstreet without any conscious thought. 

The walk takes fifteen minutes, and his head is no closer to quiet at the end of it. 

Ritta opens the door for him, staring blankly past his shoulder and asking a puzzled ‘hello, is anybody there?’ into the space behind him. He rolls his eyes and shoulders past her. She smirks and sticks her foot in his path. Even though he knew she was going to do that, he still trips. Barely catching his fall on the coat rack, White sighs deeply and hangs up his jacket. 

Ritta calls, “Hey, Black? Your imaginary friend is here to see you!”

A crash and a yelp echo down the hall, and Black comes tumbling out of his room with a wide smile, brushing loose hair out of his eyes and skipping every other step. It’s a good day, then. White finds himself smiling in return, reflexively. 

“You’re here! I was just thinking I needed to call you, but you’re already here so maybe besties telepathy really is a thing!”

“It’s not.”

“Well it’s working, so who cares what you think. Come on!”

Black ignores the eye roll, grabbing White’s arm and pulling him down the hall and into his room. His room, which is currently buried under skeins of multicolored yarn, a symphony and cacophony all at once. 

It’s… so much yarn…

White would be surprised. Except that Black’s obsession with fabrics and fashion of all kinds is well documented, and this is exactly the kind of thing Black does when he’s obsessed. “Where did you get this much yarn from?” 

Black dove heedlessly into the mess, wading in the rough direction of his desk. “They were on sale at the fabric store!”

“So you spent your entire allowance on them?”

“Yup! Isn’t it great!”

“Do you even know how to knit?”

“Um. Ye-es?” Black trails off, shifty-eyed. 

White raises a skeptical eyebrow. 

“Larissa showed me how! A few years ago… But,” Finally reaching the desk, Black triumphantly lifts a clinking shopping bag. “I bought new needles. And we can just look up what we don’t know how to do!”

White acquiesces with a sigh and sits down in the middle of the mess, pulling skeins of light pink and dark brown towards himself. Black plops down in front of him with a handful of mismatched knitting needles and a lopsided grin, and they spend the rest of the afternoon entangled. 

White listens to the sound of stars and crickets on his walk home that night, swinging the bag of yarn Black gave him on his way out the door, silence blanketing his thoughts. 

***

It’s worse today. His hurricane headache is consolidating into claws, digging in and tearing at him, wrenching and renting indiscriminately, ripping his worn soul to shreds. 

He gets out of bed, drinks a glass of water, and sits on the floor. The bag of yarn is leaning against his desk, untouched since last week’s visit. 

He takes two needles and reaches into the bag, pulling out the first ball of yarn his fingers brush. 

Black. Black will do, for a start. Black for his friend, his brother, whose smile is shrouded in shadows. Black for the self-loathing and hatred and despair that wreath his own heart. Black for the darkness, and the absence of light. 

He casts the first row, a tail of yarn dangling down, and starts on the second. The stitches pile up, one row after another, forming a patch of midnight hell at the end of silver needles. The click-click-click is soothing, and he doesn’t have to think. He draws the poison out and condenses it, contains it. Gives it tangible form. 

He comes to the end of the twelfth row, cuts the thread, and reaches for another color. 

Red. The bright, living red of rage. Of anger, directed and directionless. Of blood that boils and rises high in Black’s face, body betraying his emotions with a flush that looks like fever. White has seen Black angry many times-- his moods come and go with the wind-- but true fury is a rare look for his friend. Still, it lives in him somewhere. More importantly, White can feel it in his own veins. Lurking just under his skin, waiting to be let loose. He crushes it down viciously. And then thinks better of it, and draws it forth and out through the tips of his fingers, lining each new stitch of red with violence. 

He forms another dozen rows or so, cuts the thread, and reaches back into the bag. 

Purple, fading from violet to lavender along its length. Purple like storm clouds, purple like sorrow. Purple gathered like sadness and spun into strands of melancholy. He can feel it tangled in his chest, knows the way it chokes his words and weighs his heart. He hooks his silver needles around it and pulls, drawing it out one silver tear at a time until he holds a patch of purple in his hands. 

He cuts the thread on the twelfth row, and reaches into the bag. 

Green, sharp and fresh and fearful. Green springs up suddenly, drowning out all other emotions in a riot of terror and dread. Green winds around his heart when he sees bruises on his friend’s arms, constricts when he thinks of the future. Twelve rows of thorns and poison and mold, twelve rows pain and death and rot. They say that green represents life. How true that is. 

He cuts the thread, reaching into the bag once again. 

Orange. Orange warms from the inside out, the slow seep of contentment and satisfaction as it spreads through the body. Orange is a rare feeling, precious in it’s scarcity. Hot food, hot drinks, home and hearth. Campfires and starlight. Sitting pressed close against a friend as you both doze and dream. Sweet and mild. Stitch upon stitch, row upon row of simple, carefree happiness. 

He cuts the thread, and reaches in again. 

Yellow. Yellow like welcoming smiles and warm hugs. Yellow like joy that drips golden from hours spent in harmony. Candle-flame that illuminates, paints a circle of understanding and draws you closer to it’s glow. The sparkle and shine of laughing eyes. Messy bunches of dandelions and buttercups, pressed into his hands and placed onto his table. Yellow is all his best days, and all his favorite memories of running through sunlit fields and swimming in sun dappled water. 

He cuts the thread, runs his fingers over each careful row of radiance, and reaches into the bag again. 

Blue. Peace and still water. That moment of perfect calm every November 30th the second before their feet break the surface. Blue sky mixes with orange and yellow sunset and sunrise, inviting days of featherlight laughter. Blue is the feeling of a hand clasped tight in his own. All his favorite authors write in blue. His father’s stories wove blue into his being as a boy, intertwining with the black and red, green and purple of the rest of his childhood, soothing and smoothing the whole mess into something that doesn’t hurt every time he tugs at it. Twelve rows of blue for twelve years of childhood. 

He cuts the thread, and reaches in one last time. 

White. Pure, soft white thread to finish. Not for himself, but for his friend. Skin and hair and eyes pale with holy innocence. He wonders if Black realizes how ironic it is that his favorite color is white. Probably not. White is a mourning color in some cultures. White is the cold of snow and frost. White is unblemished and unburdened; unattainable. Each stitch of white he adds to his project is a promise. White is the end, white is the finish. Death and whatever comes after it. No matter what comes before, white is ahead. No matter what colors weave their stories, hope binds the borders. 

He finishes the final row with a final flash of silver, ties it off, and cuts the thread. 

The bag is empty, and he is surrounded by half-finishes skeins of yarn. The bright spots of color light up his dim room like gems in a coal mine. 

He doesn’t smile, but it’s close. 

The scarf in his lap looks nothing like a rainbow, but all the colors are there. It's complete, whole. A rainbow symbolizes new beginnings, some distant memory reminds him. It's a promise, a promise for a future. Not that pain will cease, but that life will go on. Every color is necessary for the whole, every emotion completes another. There is no joy without sorrow, no peace without despair. 

The human soul is woven in patches and patterns of many colors, many textures. It can’t be unraveled or overwhelmed easily.

White wraps the scarf around his neck and lies down on the floor, pushing some of the yarn aside to make room. 

He’ll give it to Black after school tomorrow. 

Until then, White closes his eyes and sleeps. He dreams of carrying handfuls of rainbow yarn through a storm, crisscrossing and tangling and twisting the threads into a lifeline, carrying it with him until the end of time, when all that makes him is unmade.

**Author's Note:**

> I just. Kinda wrote this. I hope you guys like it? This was a very experimental piece for me, more of a writing challenge than anything else. That first line is something I said in conversation with a friend and she told me I should write it down and I did and then just didn't stop writing.


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